King Kong to face Godzilla in movie monster mashup

In a piece of otherwise boring movie minutiae, the upcoming King Kong reboot Kong: Skull Island will be moving production from Universal to Warner Bros. Why does this matter? Because the move will allow the "eighth wonder of the world" to cross paths with the "king of monsters". King Kong versus Godzilla: it is on.

Skull Island is currently set for 2017 release, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. It's intended to create a "new, distinct timeline" according to producers, although one that plays to audiences' familiarity with the famous ape. The key fact though is that while production company developing both films is Legendary Pictures, Warners has international rights to Godzilla. Having both films under one umbrella makes getting the two to face off a lot easier, legally speaking.

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Hollywood site Deadline reports that the shift in studios is explicitly to line up both monsters under one roof. It also means that the currently in-development sequel to Gareth Edwards' 2014 kaiju epic will be immediately followed by the crossover.

However, quite how that crossover would work could use some ironing out. Skull Island is set in the 1970s, whereas Legendary's Godzilla film was very much a present day piece. Some sort of stasis or dormancy for the ape could explain Kong's return, but the 40 plus years between eras would rule out much of the human cast -- currently including Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson and Planet of the Apes' monkey business veteran Toby Kebbell -- from reappearing for the two to fight it out. It also begs the question of how the two titans would physically clash, when Kong has traditionally been much smaller than Godzilla.

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Then again, that question may already have been answered, and it's easy: ignore it. If the new monster mash(-up) comes to pass, it won't be the first time that the beasts have clashed on screen. In 1962, original Japanese Godzilla studio Toho released the accurately titled King Kong vs Godzilla, where the giant ape was simply.... giant-er.

Directed by Ishiro Honda and with effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, the atomic lizard's co-creators, the movie was notorious for massively increasing Kong in scale to more accurately do battle -- the creature climbed buildings in the 1933 original, whereas Godzilla regular towers over them -- and giving him the ability to absorb electricity. The sheer spectacle and the fact that the crossover was the first time either monster had been shot in colour made it a huge success, both domestically and internationally. King Kong won that bout -- can Godzilla make a decades-in-the-making comeback?

Sadly, it could be a long time before we see round two. With Skull Island still two years away, and Godzilla's next movie not due until 2018, it could be as far off as 2020 before the pair face off again.